THE CAILLAUX-CHURCHILL ENTENTE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 232, 1 October 1925, Page 10

THE CAILLAUX-CHURCHILL ENTENTE.

IS IT FAIR, IS IT RIGHT, j is it kind ? lord bradbl'ey says no: ! urom Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, August 2s. It would be a pleasant task to record of the negotiations between M. taillaux and Mr. Churchill that they are _v over bar the shouting. But tne agreement to accept the J112,500,000 in Ecu o; £30,0U0,iJ00 a year is pro\is:onal only, and is no gift horse.

France is naturally jubilant at what M. Laiileaux has jrot, Brieiiy, our ally owes us over x0O0,00u ; OOO, raised jbv this country in order that it might |be lent to her in the time of her ex- ' tremity and ours. On that sum the ; British taxpayer is paying £30.000.000 a year in the shape oi the interest ou 5 per cent war loan. France is now asked to pay us annuities of £12,500,1)00 , for sixty-two years directly out oi her i own national resources, and not in any

part out of reparations —an important ! proviso. That would still leave the British taxpayer paying the other £17.----500,000, without taking any account of j sinking fund: or. put in terms of income I tax, of tbe 7d in the £, which these { £30.000,000 represent, we should still be i paying 4Ad and the annuities from j France would only represent 2jd.

One would have imagined France I would have been satisfied, but appar- ! entlv its acquisitiveness feeds on itself. The crux of the position is that this. , the first definite agreement at all on ; the part of France to pay its debts to us, has its greatest importance vis-a-vi-jM. Caillaux's next mission to visit I America. Generous as we have been. i some of the French seem to fear Mr. ! Churchill's proviso that his offer to let Trance off with two-thirds of her debt !to us is dependent on the terms she j makes with America. This is tbe

' accepted practice in civilised nations in | compositions with creditors, but if we are to believe some of the French Press ' organs. Great Britain is being a busyj body and spoil sport in insisting on such ! a clause. j The "Matin" is furious and declares: i -'There is no parallel between the | British and American claims upon ! France. Politically, financially and j psychologically, our American debt i stands before our English debt. As 1 for the pretensions of London to meddle lin the Franco-American conversations at ] Washington, we hope that they will not

be allowed for one instant by France. ! The idea of putting France at Washing- | ton at one and the same time in the face of America and England is the j notion of a creditor by which no debtor iin his right senses would let himself be i caught: while, as for the project of '; sending a British semi-official observer Ito watch the negotiations between Mr. ! Mellon and M. Caillaux, well, it would jbe exasperating were it not merely I burlesque. France and America when | they talk together, have no need of an I observer. English or not. at their table. I If. to suppose the impossible. France j were to lend herself to such a piece of ! nonsense, we doubt whether an Ameri- | can negotiator could be found to con- ; sent." | What is wrong with the French or ■at least such of them as hold the I "-Matin's" views is that they are refusi inj to bear their fair share of the war | burden. ] Lord Bradbury has said so quite ; frankly, in a interview he gave recent iy jto the "Central News." and he. as i long resident in Paris while a member jof the Separation Commission, knows ! more than any other British financial , authority how to assess the preser.t pro- ! visional agree.ment. Lord Bradbury I declares himself to be frankly "alarmed." ; and declares that we should not have accepted anything less than £20.000.- ---! 000 anntiallv for 62 years. He regards

! the Balfour Note, the earliest attempt !to face this question, as very really I open to French criticism since, by it S French obligations.it would have resulted iin a very heavy burden on our Allied i debtors —more particularly France—in ' the event of a complete breakdown in i German reparations. Moreover, they ; would have involved excessive sacrifices |to this country relatively to France if j reparation? did well. ! "One can see the unreasonableness : from tbe French point of view.*' he said.

| "of an arrangement under which the less they received from Germany the i more they would have to pay to us. On the other hand, it is no less clear that j the more we received from Germany the : greater concessions «f could afford to make to France. In these circumstances the wise course would have he?n to postpone final settlement until a more or Jess trustworthy estimate could be made of the actual yield of German • reparations under the Dawes Plan." But he is equally sure that the new Churehill-Caillaux agreement is definitely unfair to v?. He goes on to say: "When we remember that France ha? a ! favourable trade balance and ha? | actually been paying off her commercial j foreign debts during the last five years iat the rate of £4-6.000.000 per annum i without any appreciable German ; receipts, it is clear that her in'.cr- | national balance-sheet would be in a 1 much more favourably condition than , our own. moTe particularly if we take : into account our f40.000.000 loss of annual foreign income a? a result nf | tbe sale of American securities during I the war." I Sentiments like those of the 'vVlatin" j seems to be hardly dignified on the part !of a Great Power. Language of the I type it indulges in is not far removed ; from repudiation.